Parents Who Teach 11 Counterproductive Life Lessons Raise Kids Who Become Super Stressed As Adults
Hector Petuz | Shutterstock There’s no denying that our childhood experiences affect us in adulthood, for better and for worse. The subtle messages we receive from our parents, even with the best of intentions, affect our future relationships, mental health and even our success at work.
In a society that's obsessed with working until you collapse and turning everything into a side hustle, parents have to work extra hard to teach their kids how to manage stress so they don't experience the significant negative effects of burnout. Our value lies in so much more in what we produce at work, and avoiding clichés like the ones below can help kids do better.
Parents who teach 11 counterproductive life lessons raise kids who become super stressed as adults
1. Hard work is the key to success
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When their parents feed into hustle culture and a mentality that says hard work is what matters most, the message can easily become distorted. The kid can easily begin internalizing this as, "If I'm not working the hardest I possibly can, all the time, I'm not worthy of success or even love."
Parents mean the best when they teach work ethic, but without the balance of self-care and a growth mindset, which encourages a big-picture perspective, it teaches self-destruction.
As a result, they hold themselves to a higher, completely unrealistic and unfeasible expectation, overworking themselves and disregarding their personal needs for the sake of success, climbing the corporate ladder, or appeasing a boss.
In today’s society, hard work isn’t everything when it comes to success, even if we wish it were. For example, you can look at any marginalized community or low-income household where both parents are working multiple jobs as proof. There’s a much more nuanced picture today about how to make money and become successful at work, but hard work and sacrificing your wellbeing for the sake of work isn’t the entirety of it.
2. Always be loyal to your employer
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Many older generations believe loyalty toward an employer is the most important part of their workplace culture. Often, this causes them to overwork in the name of this dedication and often set their own lives and and needs aside to make space for an overbearing work ethic and unrealistic expectations for success.
This loyalty was reward for many generations. People had job security, benefits and pensions that paid off, even in jobs on assembly lines or in grocery stores (and similar). It's different now. Loyalty needs to go both ways, and younger generations have discovered that a boss who actually earns this loyalty is rare.
When parents teach their children a similar ideal in today’s job market and corporate world, they may be setting them up for failure. They’re not only more willing to tolerate toxicity, inadequate pay, a poor work-life balance, or a bad boss for the sake of loyalty, but they also tend to sacrifice their personal routine and well-being.
It's a different time and different lessons need to be taught.
3. Emotions are a sign of weakness
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Often characterized as a “silent struggle,” suppressing emotions is unhealthy in your personal life as well as professionally. One of the most common ways people push themselves toward emotional turmoil and burnout is by acting like nothing is wrong and they can handle it all.
This comes in many forms, from avoiding doing work on deep-rooted trauma o simply overlooking their discomfort and need for rest daily, it's easy to set yourself up for collapse when you're taught that strong emotions mean you're weak or a weirdo.
People who were taught that emotions were a sign of weakness growing up are much less emotionally intelligent and self-aware now, and that doesn't serve them well in today's dating and jobs market. People want partners and employees who know how to deal with their emotional challenges.
There’s no “pushing through” uncomfortable emotions unless you can learn to sit with them. There’s no “pushing off” rest when you’re overworking yourself in a job. Everything comes back to bite you when you do not intentionally care for yourself.
4. Independence means never asking for help
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Independence is more about self-worth and security that comes from within than doing everything by yourself. Asking for help from others empowers us and even encourages people to perceive us as more competent and intelligent, even in places like the workplace that can feel ultra-competitive for people prone to burnout.
A study from the Journal of Social Psychology found that employees who ask for help and advice from peers at work are less likely to fall victim to “performance pressure” that feeds into a burnout cycle.
When you work collaboratively and feel comfortable asking for help, you protect yourself from exhaustion and model for others that asking for support is healthy and can help the whole team succeed. This is true whether it’s in the workplace or in your relationships.
5. You’re only worthy of respect when you have something to offer
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People who are extremely stressed have often been taught by transactional parents that they were only worthy of admiration, respect, love, and praise when they had something to offer them. This is a common mentality sparked by reward/punishment parenting styles early in life.
These kids often face burnout at higher rates when they're adults, navigating the workplace and their personal lives in a self-defeating mentality.
They overwork themselves for recognition from their bosses, feel guilty when they’re not constantly giving to their partner, and even grow more insecure in the face of negative feedback and criticism. Rather than prioritize their own needs, goals, and ideas about success, they absorb the beliefs of the people around them.
This means they're living for external validation in ways that sabotage true internal well-being and security.
6. All hobbies should become side hustles
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According to Harvard psychologist Natalie Christine Dattilo, if your parents held you to unrealistic standards and expectations growing up, you’ve probably done the same to yourself in adulthood. This can cause you to push yourself closer to exhaustion and, eventually, burnout.
These kinds of adults prone to burnout were likely taught that all of their time was another chance to pursue success, make money, or be productive. Hobbies as kids were probably only encouraged if they would help a kid get into college or increase their IQ rather than simply create joy.
As an adult, it can be hard for these people to learn how to do things just for themselves and have hobbies that feed their wellbeing, rest, and creativity. Not everything has to ffed your wallet and professional success.
7. The key to being happy and healthy is staying very busy
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Parents who lead by example while living over-scheduled lives and maintaining ultra-busy routines tend to spark a stressful mindset and work ethic. If your parents taught you these things, you likely turned out to be a burned-out adult, prioritizing hard work, sacrifice, and over-scheduling yourself in pursuit of success, happiness, or security.
Our jobs, families, and lives demand a lot from us, but you can choose to carve out time for yourself. If you’ve been taught these misguided mindsets, it’ll probably feel uncomfortable to prioritize yourself like you’ve been prioritizing others for your entire life. Still, it’s the key to fending off burnout.
8. Stay positive
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Focusing on maintaining the most positive attitude all the time can urge people to ignore self-reflection. This causes them to miss out on signs that something isn't right, either outside themselves or coming up from within.
While positivity and a generally positive mindset can add a lot of value to your life, like helping to spark optimism in dark moments, it is not a cure to your struggles. When parents teach that positivity can solve any problem, they actually wire their kids to ignore what may be perceived as negativity that, if they paid attention to it, could be incredibly useful to them.
The key to overcoming the stress, physical ailments, and mental turmoil you’re experiencing is facing the things you’re avoiding and moving through them, not avoiding them.
9. Self-sacrifice is necessary in order to be a success
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If parents teach that sacrifice is required for success, they teach their kids that health and well-being and even happiness are all but irrelevant to a life well-lived.
“I have to sacrifice my personal life to be successful at work” is an inherently flawed idea, but it's a binary that is incredibly common in corporate culture. A false one.
Burnout largely stems from ideas like this, especially when we’re feeding into “self-sacrificing” routines that prioritize everyone else's needs above our own. Often, exploitative bosses will take advantage of employees who have this type of self-sacrificing nature, working them into exhaustion.
That's why it's so important for parents to teach (and model!) what it looks like to balance hard work and self-sacrifice with taking care of one's needs. This starts when kids are young, with sports and activities and even academics.
Instead of pushing for regular late nights getting in extra studying, for example, parents can help their kids prepare while enforcing bedtimes and adequate nutrition. Adding in play time or fun teaches them that it's not just one or the other, that success in career is only worth it if you have a life to enjoy it within.
10. Logic is more important than creativity
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Adam Savage, in his book Every Tool’s A Hammer: Life Is What You Make It, suggests that creativity can be an effective tool to combat burnout. Everyone is a creative “maker” of their own life story, so they have the power to improve their daily lives and routines creatively, in the same way a painter works on a piece of art.
Of course, finding the time to be creative is often people’s biggest hurdle. Often, that's because they don't see their creativity as valuable or productive unless it earns them money or accolades. For many, that's because their parents emphasized that productivity was much more important than time to think, create and imagine.
In order to break this habit, people need to de-program themselves from the notion that creative pursuits are a waste of time. It can help to start by injecting creativity into their work, where they may feel they are "allowed to" (so to speak) do so.
Hopefully they start finding some joy in that and are able to do it in ways that help relieve stress or burnout, too.
11. Self-care babyish or girlie
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In our society, too many young men grow up believing taking care of their own well-being and working on their mental health are signs of weakness. This is the exact opposite of the truth, as the strongest people tend to be the ones who recognize the importance of emotional and physical well-being.
While it may seem silly or uncomfortable at first to make time solely for yourself, men (and women who have learned that you have to act like a man in order to be accepted) who unlearn this self-limiting mentality about self-care tend to be more productive and successful. Not only that, they tend to be more successful in relationships, too.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.
